


In Practice

by tokillthatmockingbird



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Other, i can't imagine everyone was super excited about this threesome idea, scallisaac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:31:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokillthatmockingbird/pseuds/tokillthatmockingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As if high school wasn’t awkward enough with all the puberty and the acne and first time blowjobs, they decided to explore in their mud-caked boots into the unknown territories of polyamorous relationships. Having two boyfriends sounded good in theory, but like Communism and drinking seven Five Hour Energy drinks before a civics final, what sounds good in theory isn’t always the best in practice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Practice

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a very intense love of Scallisaac. This is rather self-indulgent and rambly, and I'm not very sure it says anything. Maybe just some character development. I couldn't tell you, but enjoy!

As if high school wasn’t awkward enough with all the puberty and the acne and first time blowjobs, they decided to explore in their mud-caked boots into the unknown territories of polyamorous relationships. Having two boyfriends sounded good in theory, but like Communism and drinking seven Five Hour Energy drinks before a civics final, what sounds good in theory isn’t always the best in practice.

 

Allison agreed because she loved Scott, but Isaac’s blood was still caked underneath her fingernails. She still spoke to him in measured iciness, offering nothing warmer than brief smiles when they passed in the halls. Isaac agreed because he had buried his trust in Scott’s chest cavity too long ago to give up now. He had held the frayed scraps of his faith in his hands and deposited them within the other man’s heart, and he would follow him now into the sun. Refusing him was not an option, not anymore.

 

But Scott saw between them what they both stubbornly refused to see. Kindred spirits with gnashing teeth and sturdy walls around their hearts. Where Scott was always determined to _fix_ without tethers to any alliance, Isaac and Allison were pledged to duty of Pack and of family, living out of loyalty and a sometimes warped sense of duty.

 

Allison and Isaac recognized, at the very least, that what they had in common was Scott, that they were both caught in his orbit like rocks that tried hurtling on destructive paths past him, and his Good gravity suckered them in before they could. They never really had reason to cross paths before, when they were walking on the same one.

 

Allison, though, didn’t believe in destiny, didn’t believe that the Fates could beat the power of her bow. She very much believed that she was the captain of her own ship and had no desire to admit that being drawn to Scott had been part of a higher plan. She did not like to think of him as a planet and herself as nothing but a useless piece of rock designed for mindless destruction.

 

Isaac was the one that wasn’t shocked to find out he was part of the cosmos; he always felt explosive. Or rather, implosive. Like a blackhole, like he’d collapsed in on himself, and the naked eye wouldn’t see it for years to come. His life had rotated in such a way where he had gone from self-destructive to plain destructive, because the power he had been given had gone unchecked until Scott’s pull dragged him in.

 

They were a balance, in that respect. One stubbornly unwilling to yield to the alignment of the galaxies and the other entirely accepting that he was made of similar stuff as the stars. Scott thought it was perfect.

 

 

Out of respect to the object of their affections, Isaac and Allison danced around each other like children at a middle school dance, sweaty hands locked together, so focused on their steps that they couldn’t focus on each other’s eyes. Awkward, slow, more shuffling and bumping than any sort of grace, but eventually, they grew comfortable enough with the proximity that they could look up and see each other with some kind of certainty.

 

Isaac requires a lot of patience that Allison doesn’t have, and that’s good for her. A challenge and a gift in its own right because she knows enough of the world now to know that it won’t just bend to her will, that she either has to take what she wants or to work for it. And she’s slowly learning when each is appropriate.

 

He asks her to teach him how to use the crossbow, and she laughs. “You’ve got enough weapons built into your body,” she tells him. “I’m not teaching you how to use another one.” But she’s got that wrinkle in her brow, like she’s storing his question for later somewhere in the recesses of her busy mind. Isaac has become someone worth remembering the details about. Scott’s glad.

 

Then, one day, Allison seems to know Isaac better than Scott ever has. Or differently than Scott has. Scott has the tendency to treat everyone like they are breakable, if not already broken. He saw in Isaac a crystalline figurine, covered in a topcoat of a perfectly painted bad boy facade. Allison and Scott can both agree that Isaac carries with him much that needs mending, Allison knows that he’s made of stronger glass than Scott thinks.

 

Everyone is breakable. It’s just that a lot of people don’t need—or want— other people to fix them.

 

 

 

It’s a sticky-hot night in the middle of a California summer, the kind of muggy that lulls people to sleep before they’re really tired, creating a night of uncomfortable rest. The sheets are puddles at the foot of the bed where only Isaac’s feet can reach. Sweat beads on their upper lips, glistens over naked chests. Bare skin sticks to bare skin, and in the middle of the foggy, hot discomfort, Isaac starts to shiver.

 

A whimper pushes past unwilling lips. Claws don’t extend, but thin fingers curl around the fitted sheet.  Scott, sandwiched between the others and hypersensitive to sound, bolts up. Allison, hypervigilant as always, straightens out beside him, hand inside the side table drawer in search for a weapon.

 

“It’s just Isaac,” Scott sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face.

 

Isaac whimpers louder and _writhes_ like someone is dragging icy-hot blades down his chest. Allison, half autopilot, shifts from her attentive form, grip on her knife slack. She rubs chafed knuckles over tired eyes and mumbles, “What?”

 

“This happens sometimes. I’ll hear him in his own room.” Scott puts a sweaty palm on Isaac’s shoulder, and the unconscious boy reacts as if the hand has scalded him. In the moonlight that spills through the slats in the blinds, Scott watches fading scars pull taut across Isaac’s skin. He wants to kiss them, wants to soothe the redness and the memories they leave behind.

 

Allison rolls from the mattress and pads across the hardwood in barefeet, hugging Scott’s large tee shirt to her sticky body. She squats beside the bed and brushes sweat-heavy curls from Isaac’s forehead. “Hey, Isaac, wake up,” she murmurs.

 

Her touch is like an electric shock to his skin, and his body seizes with a momentary tremor of subconscious fear. Scott bites his lip, tries to pry Isaac’s fingers from the fistful of blankets. “Isaac, it’s me. It’s Scott,” Scott tenderly tries to coo to the boy. “It’s Scott. I’m not going to let anything hurt you.”

 

“Scott, stop it,” Allison snaps, and Scott freezes in shock. If Allison notices his reaction, she does not comment on it and instead focuses her steady gaze on the twitching facial features of the third member of their relationship. “Isaac, listen to me. You can do this. You are stronger than him.” Scott doesn’t remember telling her that the dreams had anything to do with Isaac’s father, and his heart flip-flops when he realizes that perhaps Isaac already had. “Tell him _no_. He doesn’t own you. He _can’t_ hurt you.”

 

Her voice is low and level, but not non-committal like it used to be. Not measured out of dislike but of great care and trepidation. She wades through the messiness of the nightmare like the mother she never got, and Scott falls back on the mattress with a mild smile pulled across his lips. He has worried his fingers into Isaac’s grasp, and it is metallically tight. Scott steadies the trembling of Isaac’s hand.

 

“Isaac. Fight it,” Allison demands. Scott notices that her fingers are threaded with Isaac’s opposite hand. “ _Win_.”

 

A whimper catches in his chest, and Isaac solidifies. No more trembling, no more sound. Scott and Allison’s eyes meet over Isaac’s body in the silence he left. He gasps alive, beads of sweat pouring down his face as he pants life back into his lungs. He folds forward, pressing his face into knobby knees. Scott hears the erratic jumping of Isaac’s heartbeat, _thumpthumpthumpthump thumpthump thumpthump thump thump thump_ , as he races to catch up with reality.

 

Wide blue eyes blink at Allison. A smile that is both proud and tired slightly turns the corners of her lips. “Good night,” she murmurs, pressing a whisper of a kiss to his temple before she climbs back to her side of the bed.

 

Scott settles between them on his pillow. Allison drifts comfortably back into sleep within a few minutes, and Isaac, he knows, will be up for the rest of the night. But his heart beat is calm, his breathing steady.

 

Scott hears the echo of his mother’s words, ringing around in the back of his head, Be your own anchor. Scott had been blinded by his own innate capacity to love others, to seek someone else as the source of his own humanity. He had been honestly hurt the day that Isaac confided that his anchor was not Scott but his father. In some warped sense of duty, Isaac had clung to the memories of goodness his father left behind.

 

Then when those memories faded and Isaac was left with nothing but his scars, Scott had been naive enough to think that he would be the natural choice for Isaac’s anchor. Or perhaps, he had been hopeful enough to believe he was that important.

 

In a strange way, Allison understood what an anchor had to be better than Scott ever had. (What a true alpha he was.) Anchoring yourself to humanity meant you had to believe in your own human nature first and then in the nature of others. Scott had taken for granted that he was so confident in his own human capacity, so naive that he saw the goodness in every person. Allison and Isaac’s worlds were not so clearly black and white. Isaac could never find which shade of gray he bled.

 

Being in a relationship wasn’t about favoritism or importance. They weren’t together as some _Romeo and Juliet_ tether to reality. Love wasn’t about not being able to exist when the other was gone but about existing despite someone else’s absence. About being bettered by the ones you loved and taking that with you for the rest of your life.

 

They had a lot to teach each other in this unconventional, polyamorous, lycanthropic relationship, and they had a lot to learn.


End file.
